Protective outer garments for firefighters usually include heavy protective turnout coats, and some form of upper leg protection to insulate them from the hazards of structural fires. Firefighters are exposed to intense heat, smoke and moisture, and such environmental conditions are compounded by the general character of the ambient weather conditions, e.g. extreme cold or extreme heat. Protective outer garments for firefighters are primarily designed to shed water and to thermally insulate the firefighters from extraordinary temperatures.
The protective garments worn by firefighters are generally comprised of an outer shell of extremely tough fabric for protection, a moisture barrier which serves primarily to shed water, and an inner insulating liner. Often times, in hot weather, the firefighters may remove their inner insulating liners for comfort when not involved in active firefighting, and then don their outer protective shells absent the inner insulating liners when called to duty. Such firefighters the fire environment and because of the design of the outer protective shell, there is no visual means by which supervisory officers may easily discern whether or not inner insulating liners are being worn. Additionally, because of the environment in which the firefighters must perform, and the physical activity which they must perform, enormous amounts of moisture are generated by their bodies that is absorbed in the inner insulating liners. Consequently, if there is no opportunity to change the inner insulating liners, or to launder and dry same, and the firefighters are required to respond to subsequent fires with only a short duration between a prior firefighting activity, they find themselves wearing uncomfortably cold and moisture saturated inner insulating liners.
In an effort to provide improved protection for firefighters, multilayered protective coats of the type, for example, described in of common assignee copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 6/470,462, filed Feb. 28, 1983 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,507,806 have been developed to provide more effective protective envelopes about the wearer thereof. Generally, a coat of such type includes: (i) a damage-resistant outer shell having an openable body portion with sleeves appended thereto, and a closure means such as a zipper or other fastening means for securing the openable body portion; (ii) an inner thermal liner comprised of a body portion having appended thereto sleeves and closure means which is substantially coincidental with the closure means of the outer shell; and (ii) a means for removably securing the outer shell to the inner liner. The inner liner of such a coat includes an interior thermal layer which is comprised of material suitable to provide thermal insulation, and a barrier layer comprised of a material suitable to provide a moisture barrier, the barrier layer being fixedly secured to the exterior surface of the thermal layer. Characterizing a coat of the type described in the aforesaid application is the design advantage of being able to readily separate the inner liner from its associated outer shell, for permitting the substitution of a clean and dry inner liner. Additionally, such a coat includes a readily observable feature for discerning whether or not the inner liner is being worn.